Avenor College will host the ninth edition of the “What’s Worth Learning?” conference series on 6 October, welcoming Alexandru Stermin, biologist, explorer and author. The event will draw on his experiences with Indigenous communities in Brazil and Vietnam and explore the question: what can we discover about ourselves when we look at the world through the eyes of people shaped by a different cultural context?
The topic is particularly relevant to parents because it opens up a conversation about the way we see the world and what we can learn when we choose to look at it from a different perspective. In a world where children will encounter different people, ideas and ways of life, the ability to step beyond what is familiar, understand another perspective and question their own beliefs becomes an important resource for life.
The conference will take place on 6 October at 4:30 pm at Avenor College and is open to the general public. Participation is free of charge, with prior registration through the registration form.
For Alexandru Stermin, his encounters with Indigenous communities in Brazil and Vietnam have meant much more than exploration experiences. Coming into contact with people who grew up in a different cultural environment encouraged him to look differently at his own way of understanding the world and to explore what he calls “reverse anthropology”: rather than looking at others in order to understand them, we try to understand ourselves better by looking at ourselves through their eyes.
Changing our perspective can turn things we take for granted into questions. The way we work, spend our time, relate to nature, define success or understand well-being no longer appears to be the only possible way of living, but one of many forms that life can take.
Who are we when, for a moment, we let go of what we consider normal? What does freedom mean? How do we define welbeing? What place does nature have in our lives, and how much of the way we live is shaped by the culture in which we grew up? These are some of the questions that will be at the heart of the conversation.
“At just 41 years old, Sandu Stermin excels in a remarkable range of fields, bringing together, with uncommon harmony, qualities and virtues that many of us would struggle to cultivate even after a lifetime of effort. His professional biography bears witness to this: a passionate university professor, gifted with a vocation for sharing experience and the fruits of rigorous academic knowledge; an explorer of unfamiliar territories, where scientific inquiry meets the impulse to understand our fellow human beings; and a natural communicator, equally at ease with children of all ages and with the ever-growing public audience he has rightly earned in recent years.
He is the author of best-selling books, scholarly articles and studies, and the founder of institutions that work constructively to protect the environment and endangered species. Sandu Stermin presents himself as a fully realised human being, in whom the outward pursuit of empirical knowledge is complemented by the force of an inward search: the search for – perhaps even the discovery of – something that might be understood as the meaning of life. Sandu brings the academic world out of the sometimes sterile confines of university life, while allowing the living, pulsating world of nature to find its place in books and across the many channels through which we communicate with one another. From science to life, and back again. A fully realised human being.
On 6 October, the Avenor community will be honoured to welcome Sandu Stermin as a speaker and as a friend.” – says Dana Papadima, Educational Director at Avenor College.
A perspective that matters to parents
The conference also opens up a conversation about education and what we choose to pass on to our children.
Beyond knowledge, skills and values, one of the important lessons we can offer children is the ability to look beyond what is familiar: to remain curious, encounter different perspectives without immediately judging them, and question their own beliefs.
In a world where children are growing up in an increasingly diverse and connected environment, the ability to understand a different point of view is becoming an essential part of education for life. And if we want to teach children to see the world through another person’s eyes, it may be important for adults to give themselves the same experience from time to time.
“What’s Worth Learning?” – a space for reflection on education
The conference with Alexandru Stermin is part of the “What’s Worth Learning?” series, initiated by Avenor College as a space for meeting and dialogue about education and the skills, values and perspectives we need in a constantly changing world.
The series explores topics relevant to education and society, from psychology and technology to the future, relationships and the way we learn. Each edition starts from the same question: what is truly worth learning, for ourselves and for our children, beyond what can be measured by a grade or an exam?
In the case of the conversation with Alexandru Stermin, the answer begins with the experience of stepping outside our own cultural context and looking at the world from somewhere else.
Sometimes, to learn something genuinely new, we do not need to acquire yet another piece of information. We simply need to look at what we already know from a different perspective.
